cradle makeover

Aaron's grandfather built a cradle for Aaron's siblings when they were young. At some point someone repainted it with the blue base and detailing. For the last few years it has been sitting in someone's garage (on the opposite side of the family, strangely enough), and when Aaron found out his sister wasn't using it, he wanted it for our little girl. I thought it was a sweet idea, but as soon as I saw the cradle I knew it had to get repainted. 

So Aaron cleaned it, sanded it, and got to painting. The first coat was quite the surprise because the color we picked out was NOT purple. But we were patient and added another two coats of paint.

And there we have it! A beautiful chocolate brown, suitable for many babies to come. We were planning on adding some pink details for our girl, but once we saw the deep glossy brown we decided no other decoration was needed.  All that's left is to make a small foam mattress (most likely from an egg carton camping pad), and it's ready for the little one to arrive!

kids and food

My sister-in-law linked to this post about kids wasting food on Facebook. Oh my goodness - that is SO my kids. Especially with the apples. One or two bites, and then I find the whole apple in random places, like on the couch or the bookshelves. It drives me batty. So that blog post made part of me want to laugh, and the other part of me to throw something against the wall. But not food.

Our similar "entertainment" here, just in the past 18 hours ... we were having a clean-out-the-leftovers-in-the-fridge dinner last night, so everyone could have whatever they wanted. RG asked for scrambled eggs so Adam made them just for her. As soon as he put them on a plate and handed them to her, she said, "Well actually I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." He darn near about threw the plate. She did eventually eat it but only after I threatened to give the eggs to the baby and she could go hungry. And just now, JE asked for a piece of bread. I handed one to her and she threw it on the floor - no, she wanted a sandwich. I really can't tell you the last time she ate her sandwich - she just mangles them  so they're inedible for anyone else to eat. And the one I just made her  - as soon as I put it on the table, she shoved the plate away while yelling, "NO!" And then flailing on the floor, howling about who knows what.

Will someone please just shoot me in the face with a bazooka.

random stuff

I didn't get any sewing done in May or June because Adam took over my sewing machine. He was making hammocks for his Scout troop before their summer camp week. They turned out pretty well! He really liked sleeping in his, rather than on a cot for 5 nights! At one point during his sewing marathon, he said something about getting a second sewing machine. That made me laugh because here we are completely new to this, and we're already talking about multiple sewing machines. And a serger. But hey - my friend Kera has 3 or 4 sewing machines and she uses them all for different things. She's got quite the set-up all over her family room sometimes, when she's doing big projects like Halloween costumes for all 6 of her kids.

Anyway, I don't have pictures of anything right now, but since I got my machine back, I have made ...

- a felt garland for Adam's birthday and Father's Day, like my Christmas one ... this one was just circles rather than all the mixed shapes. I used various shades of blue, and threw in the occasional green, yellow, or orange to break it up. I really like it! I plan to make one for each of the girls in their "signature color" for when we celebrate their birthdays and other big events.

- a "cozy" for Adam's camp gear - see this post for how their Scout troop is starting to do their food on overnight campouts and what that item is. Adam was going to make one for himself but I beat him to it and gave it to him as part of his birthday stuff. I made one out of old jeans and some cotton fabric on the inside (blue and white stripes ... but one of these days, I gotta stick something cutsey and girly on the inside of some of his Scout stuff - mwa ha ha!), and I put 3 layers of quilt batting in between. My machine didn't like how thick it all was but we managed to get it done.

- one of the t-shirt playdresses. I have the fixin's for 6 of them (2 each for SM, RG, and JE) plus 2 sundresses for the baby. I made one of them awhile ago, and finally took the time to make the 2nd one earlier this week. I'm giving myself a deadline of next week to get the whole bunch of them done. I want this pile of fabric off my dining room table where it has taken up residence for over a month.

- two Independence Day skirts, for SM and JE. RG didn't want one and I didn't have time to make anything for the baby. The fabric was in the stash I got from a lady at church cleaning out her fabric storage and she gave a bunch to me. It's an off-white background with the Pledge of Allegiance printed all over it and some little flags. I did the Simple Skirt from MADE, like I did with the Easter skirts so they went very fast. I'm getting better at this! Yay! My next thing to figure out with skirts for the girls is how to embellish them - add a ruffle around the bottom or do a different model/tutorial for a skirt. Something new and different.